PlayStation

Mortal Kombat 3

I guess I couldn't escape the inevitable review. Well, it looks and plays very close to the arcade version with combos and little nuances intact. As a port of the arcade, it is an excellent job. I personally have a slight problem with the Playstation controller and had some difficulty on some of the combos, but that's just me. Access time is tight and the game is as close as any MK fan could wish for (except for Shang's lag time in the morphs). If you like the original, you'll love it.

There's a nice selection of options to adjust the difficulty, violence, and controls, but unfortunately there's no way to save high scores or settings to memory card. Some readers have expressed concern about Shang Tsung's "morph" move, but since he always transforms into his opponent this time, there's no load time involved. Mortal Kombat 3 is a very good fighter, and if you enjoyed the previous editions, this will give you more of what you want.

Mortal Kombat is officially an established American institution. But like apple pie and baseball, some people just prefer cherry pie and rugby. Such is Mortal Kombat 3, but it is a worthy rent, and a must have for us apple pie -eating baseball fans.

Flaws aside, this port is good enough to convince fans of the arcade game to buy a Playstation. But the conversion, excellent though it is, won't win over those gamers the arcade MK 3 failed to impress. They'll want to wait for the new fighters and stages of the forthcoming MK 3 Ultimate arcade upgrade.

Kombat loyalists will love the chance to memorize more Fatality codes and even a sourpuss like me can't help but get all tingly when a game of this magnitude finally comes home. So I'll play it, love it one minute, then hate it the next and then play it some more until the novelty of the new characters wears off and I've seen all the finishing moves. But unless some dramatic changes are made to the basic MK formula, I won't care if there's never an MK4.

MK3, however, adds little to the series. Sure, there are a couple of new characters, a run feature, and a new combo system, but is it enough? Here's where opinion will split: die-hard fans will love it, others will wonder what all the fuss is about. I'm sure you've already made your decision. Plus, the PSX version has some serious glitches, like the infamous "morph-pause." Ugh. Unless you're a serious MK freak, save this one for the arcades.